But as the weather changed, so did our spirits. There was exultation in the wind; rain drove in slanting sheets, the wind amongst the cliffs over our heads was like the surf of the ocean. We were warm and dry in our cave. We sat inside the  door, watching the squalls scud down the gully and spread themselves over the moor, over the valley, until they blotted out Speyside. Loch Coulter was white with foam. Whirling gouts of spray rose from the loch, and the wind carried them away, to drench the moor and flood the Spey and lace the seldom-seen Monadhliahs with silver streams. Floods that fell from the lip of the precipices around us were caught by the wind, blown into mist by the wind, flung back on the hills that gathered them from the clouds.

It grew cold and the land was a vast bog save where the black streaming cliffs rose to touch the racing sky. Our cave was warm and dry. Even when the clouds were riven momently from the peaks and we saw new snow, not the white powdery coat of the year’s first snow, but leaden stuff under the leaden sky, we were not downcast.

We ate, we slept, we watched the days scud past. We seemed to lose track of everything. Our larder was almost empty but I shot grouse from the door of the cave, and we lived on them from day to day, from hand to mouth. Terry unravelled a pair of my stockings to reknit them. I busied myself cleaning the rifles. We piled on fire and prided ourselves on our comfort.

The weather began to clear yesterday. After midday the rain ended and I called Terry to view a break in the western sky. By night the sky was empty. The wind blew as strongly as ever though the sun shone without clouds. Night comes down early now. It hid the world, save where a snowy peak glimmered. We heard the hoarse voice of many streams. Lying awake we listened in silence to their shouting. When we wakened in the morning the wind was down. It was very cold; the burns though noisy yet were falling and we surveyed a bare swept country, prepared for winter. The sun commenced to warm the morning air. The light of morning was very clear; we could see the most remote distance as if nothing interposed between ourselves and it save space. The Cairngorms made miniatures of themselves upon the horizon, against the green-blue sky.

‘Autumn’s done,’ I told Terry.